MALIBU, California – The #9 Pepperdine men's water polo team played #6 Long Beach State fairly evenly for three of the four quarters on Sunday, but a second quarter controlled by the Beach contributed to a 17-10 Golden Coast Conference defeat.
After a 3-3 first quarter, LBSU (17-8, 2-1) outscored the Waves (12-12, 1-2) 6-1 in the second period to take a commanding lead.
BIG WAVES
- Senior attacker Curtis Jarvis (Huntington Beach, Calif./Huntington Beach HS) had three goals, two assists and two steals. It was his fifth hat trick of the season.
- Junior center defender Nico Tierney (Sierra Madre, Calif./Harvard-Westlake HS) notched a pair of goals.
- Freshman attacker Sandor Gal (Budapest, Hungary) had a goal and two assists.
GAME RECAP
The Waves scored first and had a total of three one-goal leads in the first quarter. But after the first period ended with a 3-3 tie, the Beach ran off the game's next six goals. Tierney finally ended the run just before halftime to make it 9-4 at the break. The Waves couldn't make the deficit any less than five goals in the second half, as the Beach outscored Pepperdine 4-3 in both the third and fourth quarters.
LBSU 3-6-4-4---17
PEPP 3-1-3-3---10
Pepperdine goals: Curtis Jarvis 3,
Nico Tierney 2,
Dennis Blyashov 1,
Sandor Gal 1,
Kaden Kaneko 1,
Kyle Thomas 1,
Matty Walsh 1.
QUOTABLE
Pepperdine Coach
Terry Schroeder said: "Long Beach State's got a couple of really good players and we tried to focus on them. Garrett Zaan really hurt us at center. Four goals, six kickouts, he was a machine in there. We've struggled against dominant centers and we've got to figure that out in our last couple of weeks. We had some opportunities on 6-on-5s, and we had to make more of them. We can't let the opponent make a run like they did in the second quarter, because it's hard playing catch-up from that."
UP NEXT
Pepperdine has two more Golden Coast Conference games left to close out the regular season. Next Saturday (Nov. 5), the Waves will visit UC Irvine at noon.
